


Strike Out

by lettadaloki



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: A couple of OCs I tossed in, Because who owned the Third Rail before John?, Brotherhood of Steel (Fallout), Character Death, John McDonough (after he left Goodneighbor), M/M, Prostitution for chems, Someone had to. It's probably been there for years., added the warning just in case, dubcon sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 19:48:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12637953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettadaloki/pseuds/lettadaloki
Summary: "Guy was scum. Used us drifters like his own personal piggy bank. He had this goon squad he'd use to keep people in line. Every so often he'd let them off the leash, go blow off some steam on the populace at large.	Folks with homes could lock their doors, but us drifters? We got it bad. There was one night, some drifter said something to them...."





	Strike Out

The Third Rail was booming business as it always did. No table was untouched by the condensation rings of missing glasses, but they were covered in the elbows of women whose eyes would eat men alive. Those very men were running hands under skirts, while telling of the great fortunes and farms that hadn’t even existed before the war. Three or four raiders gave each other shit for Cigarette smoke kept the air as thick as fog.

A woman at the bar in a red sequinned dress paid careful attention to a band of ghouls that played their own renditions of romance that only the Ink Spots could properly compose on a stage that was once an old table with the legs ripped off. A Mr. Handy cleaned glasses and hurriedly served to the busy bar, while a red headed girl behind the counter did her best to keep up, alongside yet another bartender though of human origin. Through the crowd, a voice burst through as a man with sweaty blonde hair and dark skin managed to squeeze through.

“Yo Kevin! You seen John today?” The man licked his dried lips, giving the robot, and the more annoyed Fahrenheit a nod. Kevin paused from his work to rub his sweating forehead with the side of his arm, with a short but equally annoyed reply.

“He’s in the back with a raider trying to pay back his tab.”

Faris grinned, tossing the guy a bottle cap for the help, not even looking back to him or even the people he pushed by to get through the crowd, although the VIP room was just five feet from the bar he’d left. The room was illuminated purposefully with more candles and light-bulbs on the verge of going bad, giving the blue tiles a different look to the red illuminated linoleum inside that old railroad station.

“Hey John, I got some-” He was cut off by a single finger of John’s that pointed up, and the sounds of gurgling mixed with a satisfied grunt. The gesture requested just a second of time.

That long blonde hair was pulled back roughly by the ponytail, and he was free to breathe in exchange for a good tin of bottle caps, a cannister of jet and a taste that no amount of vomit inducing would remove. The raider tossed the tin and red cannister across the floor for John to catch with a shoe while he simultaneously wiped the drool from his chin.

The raider adjusted himself, rose to his feet and shoved Faris aside as he walked back into the Third Rail crowd. Faris wasn’t phased.. It was ordinary with Vic running the place.

“How many caps?” Faris asked, offering a hand to pull the teen to his feet. John accepted it.

“Enough to pay back Kevin and for a couple of mutfruit if I can cut a deal with Trashcan Carla.” John wiped his lips again with the sleeve of his brown gingham shirt.

“Mutfruit?” Faris raised a brow. “Since when did  _you_  become too good for Instamash?”

John slugged the fucker for that, but laughed as they started walking back towards the main bar as he started counting caps in the tin. “Fuck off with that, Faris. Where the fuck did you run off to? It’s been weeks.”

“Heh.. It’s a funny story. I’m actually joining up with the the Brotherhood of Steel.” That made John stop in his tracks, and turn with a brow raised.

“Ain’t the Brotherhood those uptight power armor wearing fucks?”

“Yeah. They’re saying that they’re gonna wipe out the Institute, and I’m all in for it.”

“You’re crazy..” John mused with a sly grin, dumping a handful of caps into a glass from his own pockets, and counting out the rest from the tin.

Fahrenheit rolled her eyes and snagged the glass to slip under the counter for Kevin to inspect later, but she dared to snap right back at John, as dumb as he was. “Crazy like you just sucked cock for caps and jet?”

“Hey, hey. I paid back the tab, didn’t I?” John hmphed, flipping Fahrenheit both middle fingers as Faris tugged him by the arm towards the stairs. John called back out to Fahrenheit. “Hey! You and Kevin meet up with us at the same old spot tonight?”

“Fuck you, John!”

John grinned as her voice echoed into the tunnel as they ascended, the music fading as did the laughter and conversation. His lungs filled with air that didn’t promise later poisoning in life as he teased to Faris. “I think she likes me.”

The man rolled his eyes, and slugged John again. “She’d like you with her boot up your ass..”

* * *

 

The city of Goodneighbor at that time had been less than pleasant. Raiders could do what they want, and traders had a grip around their throat. Residents kept to themselves, but drifters like John were always questionable in terms of life.. Still, the city was bright and booming, with lights strung from building to building. An Assaultron guarded her arsenal of toys in a lone shop on the corner. When she arrived, no one knew or even dared to ask, even the leader Vic wasn’t stupid enough to fuck with a girl like that.  _She’s a terror, make no error._

Rounding that corner, an old woman bitched, “It’s about damn time, John. I was supposed to leave…” She made a face of indignancy, to which John raised a brow.

“When  ** _were_**  you supposed to leave, Carla?”

Carla glared, angered by how he flaunted his intelligence. “What the fuck do you want?”

“Mutfruit and some water.”

“50 caps.”

“I’ll give you 35.”

“50, John.” Carla scowled.

John frowned. “I’ve got forty-five.”

“Tough shit.”

He scowled himself now, putting twenty caps in her hand. “Just the water then.” In exchange, he got a carton of water in what had to have once been a milk carton. The labels were aged beyond any sort of recognition, and the water itself was just unsanitary.

Still, it’d get that awful taste of his mouth as he left her, and he and Faris walked to the empty space beside KLE0’s shop. The front was blown apart, as if a missile had hit it directly and just left the second story and half of the stairs intact, but it made do when you couldn’t afford the stupid hotel. The two dropped on a sleeping bag amongst a pile of others, since furniture was a luxury. “You said you’re joining the Brotherhood.. What’s that mean now?” John tilted his head.

“I’ll join under Paladin Brandis’s sponsorship.” John rolled his eyes, but Faris nodded and continued, “I know, it sounds like a bunch of bullshit, but they’ve got consistent supplies, and you get paid on top of your rations AND you get power armor. That beats raiding and scavenging.. Hell, it even beats Diamond City.”

“You realize the Brotherhood assholes are just as bad, right?” John took a swish of dirty water and gurgled, spitting outside a broken window.

“I’m sorry John, but what the fuck else is out here?”

“Hmph… When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow night I’m supposed to meet Brandis. It’s why I came into town, for one last night. Can’t do chems on vertibirds, ya know?” Faris grinned stupidly, bumping his friend, to which John rolled to his feet, holding the cannister of jet in mock celebration.

“Then we’d better get the fucking party going, shouldn’t we? Fahrenheit and Kevin’ll be off in half an hour! Hell, we can even invite the singer!” John grinned, and Faris cheered.

And in the night of the hot summer, John, Faris, Fahrenheit, and a gal twice their age they’d know as Magnolia all sat together, curled in the small space of an exposed makeshift apartment singing their own rendition of We’ll Meet Again, louder than the residents cared to hear, with hands wrapped around the clothing of their friend that would be gone soon to fight a war that hadn’t yet begun. Kevin sat across with a bottle of vodka that all their lips had shared, just as drunk as the rest of them.

They were so loud and obnoxious in their drunken malaise that they hadn’t even noticed the familiar and deadly shouting of Vic’s goon squad leaving the state house. They bullied drifters of their caps, going street corner to street corner. If it weren’t for KLE0’s space between them, they might’ve heard them coming.. But when the dark shadow of men covered the glow that kept them awake, they were all aware.

“Having  _fun_  tonight, kids?”

The chill insinuation in Vic’s voice was always something that left people violated and disgusted, and his eyes always lingered too long on everyone, John included.. But still, John stayed silent. Vic’s beady brown eyes narrowed, and he laughed, crossing his arms. “Everyone in Goodneighbor’s given their share.. Where’s yours?”

“ _Up your ass_.”

Fahrenheit’s and Faris’s gazes went right to John as if he’d signed his own death wish, but John had stayed shockingly silent, his own green eyes wide with shock. Magnolia’s own head was fixated to stare at Kevin who’d dare to say anything.

Vic’s hand snatched the bartender by the shirt to yank him to make eye contact, while his other hand tightened around the bladed baseball bat he carried like a scythe. “ _What the fuck did you say to me?”_ The raiders in the group were watching them all like radstags to mount over their fireplaces if they moved too.

Kevin snarled, drunk with confidence and pent up anger. “Up, your,  **ass**!”

 **CRACK**!  _Clunk_.

Fahrenheit screamed behind John’s muffled hand when Kevin’s body hit the ground. To add insult to injury, Vic didn’t stop. He kept striking again and again, until there wasn’t anything recognizable to the face of the bartender they’d known. His nose was split and his teeth were ruined. Fahrenheit’s brother had died before he hit the ground, but the blunt force with shattered eye-sockets was enough to question if Vic was even aware that the man was dead.

 _“All of you see this?!”_  Vic finally stopped, pointing his bloodied, brain covered baseball bat at the surviving four that were pale with shock.

**“THIS WILL BE YOU!”**


End file.
